Anantapur misses kharif groundnut crop

Anantapur: With July ending dry without monsoon smiling on Rayalaseema districts, particularly Anantapur, farmers and even government officials who expected rains to make a windfall in the second fortnight of July are now a disappointed lot with groundnut sowing registering only 25 per cent in the district and 75 per cent of groundnut sowing area going high and dry.

Out of the kharif sowing area of multiple crops, including the principal crop of groundnut and other crops of 8 lakh hectare, only 2 lakh hectare of general crop area was covered. Coming to the solo groundnut crop area of 5 lakh hectare, only 1 lakh hectare groundnut area was covered by the end of July 2019.

All is not well with even the sown area because of erratic monsoon in some areas and no rains in some mandals. With monsoon playing truant with the district farmers, today there is hardly any difference between sown area and unsown area.

District collector S Sathyanarayana and agriculture joint director Habeeb Basha, speaking to The Hans India, advocated crop diversification to cereals and millets in the unsown area of 5 lakh hectare. These crops being short-term commercial crops, they are profitable, remunerative, credible and viable alternative to groundnut.

There are several reasons for the farmers' disinclination towards crops diversification as they see groundnut crop useful even as fodder if it withered crop but as of now it makes no sense as there is no crop in 75 per cent of the crop area.

The average rainfall deficit is 62 per cent with some parts of the district experiencing no rainfall at all.

Farmers who went for sowing in the first spell of rains in some parts of the district were disappointed when rains played hide and seek as the second spell of rains expected during July second fortnight did not occur landing farmers doldrums.